WHAT IS VOLATILITY?

In 2007, the first version of The Volatility Framework was released publicly at Black Hat DC. The software was based on years of published academic research into advanced memory analysis and forensics. Up until that point, digital investigations had focused primarily on finding contraband within hard drive images. Volatility introduced people to the power of analyzing the runtime state of a system using the data found in volatile storage (RAM). It also provided a cross-platform, modular, and extensible platform to encourage further work into this exciting area of research. Another major goal was to encourage collaboration, innovation, and accessibility to knowledge that had been common within the offensive software communities.

​Since that time, memory analysis has become one of the most important topics to the future of digital investigations. Volatility is now the world’s most widely used memory forensics platform, which is supported by one of the largest and most active communities in the forensics industry. Volatility also provides a unique platform that enables cutting-edge research to be immediately transitioned into the hands of digital investigators. As a result, research built on top of Volatility has appeared at top academic conferences, and Volatility has been used on some of the most critical investigations of the past decade. It has become an indispensable digital investigation tool relied upon by law enforcement, military, academia, and commercial investigators around the world.

​Volatility development is supported by The Volatility Foundation, an independent 501(c) (3) non-profit organization. The Volatility Foundation was established to promote the use of Volatility and memory analysis within the forensics community; defend the project’s intellectual property (trademarks, licenses, etc.) and longevity; and help advance innovative memory analysis research. Along these lines, the Volatility Foundation was also formed to help protect the rights of the developers, who sacrifice their time and resources to keep the world’s most advanced memory forensics platform free and open source.